- Today, we're talking about the viral woman
who was dubbed Crazy Plane Lady by the internet,
speaking out about her cryptic,
"Final Destination"-style message.
MrBeast destroying the internet.
New laws being passed going after the parents
of child influencers.
There was a horrifying jet crash.
Survivors of the wildfires in Maui are crying out for help
and in anger.
We're gonna talk about all that and so much more
in today's brand-new "Philip DeFranco Show,"
your daily dive into the news,
so hit that like button, and let's just jump into it.
Starting with, we need to talk
about 38-year-old Tiffany Gomas,
or as the internet referred to her, Crazy Plane Lady,
because she was the woman on an American Airlines flight
preparing to take off from Dallas to Orlando last month,
and reportedly, Tiffany got into an argument
with a family, whom she accused of stealing her AirPods,
with that then somehow turning into her marching
to the front of the plane, proclaiming that it was not safe
and that it wouldn't reach its destination,
with her then pointing towards the back of the plane
and claiming someone was not real.
- Can either believe it, or they can not believe it.
I don't give two (beep), but I am telling you right now,
that (beep), that (beep) back there is not real.
- And so because of that, everyone on board
had to get off and go back through security,
but by the time police arrived,
Tiffany was trying to get back on the flight.
And with that, you can then hear an airline manager
through a bodycam threatening her
with criminal trespass if she doesn't leave,
with her eventually relenting,
but not without repeating this warning
that people likened to a scene from "Final Destination."
- Like, do not let that flight leave.
That flight's not gonna make it to Orlando.
Oh, yeah, until y'all see that flight (beep) blow up.
- And over the weekend, in addition to that second video,
we've also now seen a third, which was Tiffany's apology.
Right, 'cause for a while after this,
no one actually knew who this woman was,
but over around the last week,
her information started to come out,
although it was, like, a lot of information.
She was, like, full-on getting doxed.
And all of that leading to her speaking to TMZ,
where she called her actions completely unacceptable
and saying, "Distressed or not,
I should have been in control of my emotions,
and that was not the case.
My use of profanity was completely unnecessary,
and I wanna apologize to everyone on that plane,
especially those that had children aboard.
Can't imagine going through that
and trying to explain to your kid
what in the world just happened.
- With Tiffany then starting to choke up,
while noting that everyone has bad moments,
but hers were caught on camera,
and that's made her a laughingstock to the whole world.
- While it has been really comical for everyone,
and I have highly enjoyed so many of the memes,
on the flip side, it is very invasive
and unkind.
- And her then thanking her family
for supporting her through everything
and saying that she just wants to do good in the world.
But her apology has sparked a number of reactions,
including a wave of conspiracy theories.
So it's the internet. Some are serious.
Some are joking, though countless tweets
saying, "They got to her," whoever they are,
others saying that the Tiffany who made this apology video
isn't the same person from the original video on the plane,
others claiming that this is just
some sort of marketing ploy,
of course, this just in addition to people
that are like, "Okay, she had, like,
some sort of break
or some sort of episode."
But whatever the theory or reaction,
many people are still asking that same question
under her apology video that they've been asking
since the original video blew up: "What did you see?"
And then, y'all, a jet crashed
into a parking lot in Michigan,
with it reportedly being a Soviet fighter plane
used in the Thunder Over Michigan air show
in Belleville on Sunday,
where on the final turn, there was a problem in midair,
forcing the pilot and crew member
to eject from the plane and parachute to the ground,
with the jet then crashing into a parking lot
of a nearby apartment complex,
and amazing, there were no reported injuries,
with the plane managing to hit
only unoccupied vehicles in the parking lot,
and both crew members being checked out
at the local hospital and coming out relatively unscathed,
though this is not the end of the situation
because the FAA said in a statement
that they'd be investing the crash,
along with the National Transportation Safety Board.
And then, last week's wildfire in Hawaii
was the deadliest in modern US history,
and people aren't only sad, they're pissed off.
With the death toll reaching at least 96 people so far,
but that number is also likely to rise
as the search and cleanup operations continue.
Right, 'cause reportedly, just 3%
of Lahaina's charred ruins have been searched so far,
and nearly all of the bodies that have been recovered
are unidentifiable because of the burns,
with Maui County Police Chief saying on Saturday,
"We pick up remains, and they fall apart.
None of us really know the size of it yet."
You also have an estimated $5.6 billion in damages,
with thousands of acres being burned,
including homes, businesses, schools, churches,
and historic sites, all simply incinerated.
And as we talked about last week,
the hardest-hit area has been the town of Lahaina,
with Maui County estimating that more than 80%
of the more than 2,700 structures in the town
were damaged or destroyed, and 4,500 residents
are newly in need of shelter.
And so now, the cleanup process has begun,
and state officials say that it will likely take weeks,
if not months, to clean up toxic materials
left over from the fire,
starting with the most urgent hazards like propane tanks
and then moving on to all the ash and rubble
that may contain stuff like lead paint,
asbestos, and arsenic.
So if you're in a destroyed area,
experts advise that you cover up as much as possible,
with closed-toe shoes, pants, long-sleeve shirts,
gloves, and goggles as well as a well-fitting surgical mask
or an N95.
Also, officials issued a water advisory Friday
for upper Kula and Lahaina, warning that it's unsafe
to consume tap water even if you boil it first.
But for many displaced residents,
the lack of access to PPE is the least of their worries,
with a number of them telling "Insider"
that they're increasingly desperate
for first aid, food, and water,
and feeling abandoned by their government.
You have local volunteers with no experience
in disaster management helping to coordinate supply drops
and organizing neighborhood patrols
to keep one another safe,
with one resident even saying,
"I had to deal with a situation that wasn't even part
of who I am or what I do.
I had to talk to pilots that got grounded
with our medical supplies, who were stuck
on the Big Island because the Department of Health
stopped them from transporting insulin."
And the road closures have also caused a lotta grief
for people just trying to get back to their homes,
with reportedly a near riot breaking out
between cops and about 100 residents
after police closed off access to a highway
leading to Lahaina.
And elsewhere, you have local authorities
reportedly struggling to maintain order,
with a co-owner of a Lahaina bar saying,
"There's some police presence.
There's some military presence,
but at night, people are being robbed at gunpoint.
People are raped and pillaged.
I mean, they're going through houses,
and then by day, it's hunky dory."
Meanwhile, you have state officials trying
to safeguard the tourism economy by stressing
that the island is not closed to visitors,
but that has also led to concerns
that evacuees will have to compete
with wealthy tourists for housing,
which already had a shortage,
even before the fire incinerated thousands of homes,
and so a lotta critical scrutiny has been directed
toward the tourism industry and mainlanders on the island,
with, for example, one Maui Snorkeling company
having to apologize after it ran a boat tour on Friday
while parts of the island were still burning.
But then more broadly, people fear that this wildfire
is gonna supercharge the displacement of Native Hawaiians
and local-born residents who can no longer afford
to live in their birthplace,
with residents telling reporters they're worried
that when their hometown is rebuilt,
the new homes will target wealthy outside buyers looking
for a tropical haven, one evacuee telling the AP,
"I'm more concerned of big land developers coming in
and seeing this charred land as an opportunity
to rebuild hotels and condos
that we can't afford to live in.
That's what we're afraid of."
'Cause already, the median price of a Maui home
is $1.2 million, and a condo's 850K,
and while some residents may be eligible for payouts,
they're probably gonna have to spend months or years
wrangling with insurance companies
and government aid agencies into giving them the cash
that they need, which is likely gonna be too long
for locals working low-pay service jobs.
And we're talking about people just trying
to make ends meet, which was hard enough
before all this happened.
With a state analysis last year showing
that a person working 40 hours a week would need to make
at least $18 an hour to afford housing
and other necessities,
but the minimum wage there is only 12.
So you've got Hawaiian residents spending
on average 42% of their income just on rent,
the highest of any state in the US,
which also means a growing share of them
are being priced out of their home,
with many of them having to leave
and resettle in places like Vegas and Sacramento.
You're literally pushing out the culture,
but also in the wake of this cascading disaster,
many others are wondering why it got so bad
and why they were seemingly so unprepared.
Right, 'cause if you actually listen to the people's story,
so many of them say they never got any emergency alerts
on the first day of the fires, and it actually turns out,
the government confirmed that none
of the more than 80 siren towers on Maui went off,
with the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesperson
not giving a reason as to why,
but noting that three other alert systems were activated,
including through cell phone, radio, and television.
But that also doesn't mean much for the residents
who had poor cell service, lost power,
or didn't own cable TV because, you know, it's fucking 2023.
Plus, the whole point of those sirens
is to alert people to check their phones, TV,
or radio to get further instructions.
Right, one isn't a substitute for the other,
and getting an early warning is crucial
for disasters like this because when the flames
are crawling toward you literally at a rate
of a mile a minute, every single second
could mean the difference between life and death.
And you have this disaster, where countless stories
from survivors describe how it was just
this normal sunny day, and it turned
into a burning hellscape seemingly instantaneously.
And so now, you have Hawaii's governor and attorney general
reviewing the county's emergency response,
but for now, we're gonna have to wait to see
not only if someone will be held accountable,
if systems will update,
but what will happen to the people affected.
And then, can MrBeast be stopped?
When does he hit his peak?
'Cause you may not be aware of this,
but every time he one-ups himself now, it's just history.
Like, he was on a podcast recently saying
he was having to lower everyone's expectations
about the release of his now newest video
and saying before the release, "Guys, like,
we need to not stress if we don't one-up ourselves here."
And that's because the video that he had posted before that
was his best-performing video ever,
getting the second most views in a 24-hour period
in the history of YouTube.
And then, he released the new video
and got the most views in a 24-hour period.
And so the question remains,
is there something that can slow this guy down?
'Cause not only do the views keep going up
into a place I never thought we'd see them,
the actual content itself, it's doing the same thing,
with Jimmy giving a preview of his upcoming video,
and it's insane.
It's like he's doing his own Squid Game Olympics.
And it's no wonder this guy's having
to create companies like Feastables
'cause what ad agencies have the budget
for these kinds of videos?
Like, it's not a one-to-one comparison,
but Jimmy essentially releases a weekly Super Bowl.
Like, according to Nielsen,
200 million people watch the Super Bowl,
which, by the way, is just a huge piece of content,
let alone, like, what parts were they watching?
MrBeast's last four videos, and keep in mind,
this ranges from just two days ago to two months ago,
his record-breaker currently at 68 million views,
the one before 115 million views, 134 million,
200 million views, with him also now recently expressing
his goal to surpass T-Series
as the most subscribed channel on YouTube,
though notably, he is still far off for now.
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And then, ooh, let's talk about some dirty laundry
getting exposed because reportedly,
the owners and managers of Williamsburg,
Virginia laundry company smuggled more than 100 migrants,
including minors, from El Salvador
and forced them to work for them,
with a Homeland Security probe
into Magnolia Cleaning Services beginning back in 2021
and court documents detailing the chain
of exploitation and abuse these migrants faced.
With them recruiting in Central America,
bringing back migrants between the ages
of 14 and 25 to Virginia,
then giving them fraudulent Social Security numbers
and a place to stay at the laundry facility,
but the workers were also told
that they owed a debt to Magnolia Cleaning
for smuggling them into the country,
and so they were expected to pay rent for lodgings,
which didn't have heating or cooling
and even lacked basic necessities like a kitchen
or a shower, with the migrants also facing physical abuse
at the hands of their smugglers,
one teenager reporting that a manager pulled her hair,
with orders to get back to work,
even beating her with a belt
when they found out that she had made friends at school.
And these smugglers used fear to keep the workers in line,
threatening to deport them
if they refused to work extra hours,
with Jessica Aber, US Attorney for the Eastern District
of Virginia saying, "These business owners
enriched themselves through this brutal enterprise
using fraudulent identification documents
and money laundering to falsify their wage records
and just benefit themselves from the proceeds.
These individuals lied, manipulated,
and threatened their victims,
using fear to trap them in inhumane situations."
With prosecutors back in December
announcing a 33-count indictment,
and six months later, the two owners and one of the managers
were ordered to forfeit over $4 million in proceeds,
with an undisclosed amount going to the victims.
And as of now, they have each pleaded guilty
and gotten their sentences, with one owner being sentenced
to four years in prison, and the other two and a half,
as well as one manager,
who was sentenced to nearly five years in prison,
with another seeing only two years
for creating false identity documents.
And as kind of, like, a silver lining to this,
according to a Homeland Security special agent,
the victims in the situation were given resources,
including a T visa, which is a visa provided
to the victims of human trafficking
that allows them to stay in the country temporarily
and serves as a pathway to citizenship.
And then, meet your douchebag of the day,
Marques Jamal Jackson, and I can say that confidently
because Marques was part of a revenge porn lawsuit
brought on by his ex,
who's only identified as Jane Doe in this,
that has now ended with a Texas court telling him
he needs to pay her $1.2 billion 'cause for whatever reason,
this waste of space decided to harass her constantly
after they broke up in 2021.
And on top of the standard horrible things
like constantly calling his ex with a spoofed phone number,
he also posted nude photos and videos she had sent him
on Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, and Pornhub,
with him then going even further and sending links
to this stuff to her friends, family, and workplaces,
and this poor woman telling reporters
that her life revolved around trying to constrain it
and that, "This type of experience is devastating."
And it's not like Marques could pretend he didn't know
that the nudes were only for him,
as his ex made it very clear that was the case,
although he even went way beyond that.
He also managed to get access
to his ex's mother's security camera system
and was able to watch his former partner,
also getting into her bank account and using her funds
to pay his rent, with the jury only needing 30 minutes
to award the victim $1.2 billion,
which is a billion dollars more
than she was even asking for,
with her ex not even showing up to the court proceedings.
However, the reality is, she's likely not gonna see
anywhere near that amount of money.
And unfortunately, it's not all good news either.
Where revenge porn's been illegal in Texas since 2015,
there hasn't been a criminal case here involving Marques,
with the victim reportedly having gone to police
after the problem but receiving very little help.
Though hopefully, headlines like this
will make police departments a little more receptive
to actually listening to victims.
And then, the former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried
had his bail revoked and was ordered back to jail
in New York, and this, because according to prosecutors,
SBF was tampering with witnesses
on at least two separate occasions.
Most notably is the release of the private diary entries
of his ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison,
who also managed SBF's hedge fund, Alameda Research,
with Ellison pleading guilty to charges against her
and very likely going to testify against Bankman-Fried
in his upcoming trial.
And reportedly, the diary entries
contained Ellison's misgivings
regarding her career and position,
as well as reflections about her relationship with SBF.
And just hours after the New York Times
published their piece, including Ellison's writings,
prosecutors filed a request to modify Bankman-Fried's bail,
saying that this was a move by SBF
to try to intimidate and discredit Ellison,
and specifically, prosecutors saying this was an attempt
to, quote, "Intimidate and corruptly persuade Ellison
with respect to her upcoming trial testimony,
as well as an effort to influence or prevent the testimony
of other potential trial witnesses
by creating the specter that their most intimate business
is at risk of being reported in the press.
Though it also wasn't just this release.
SBF also reportedly tried messaging another FTX executive
and was caught using a VPN.
And before Friday, SBF was staying
in his parents' multi-million-dollar home in California
on house arrest.
However, with his bail revoked,
he was immediately remanded into custody of the US Marshals
and will stay in the Metropolitan Detention Center
in Brooklyn until his trial in October.
Now, SBF's lawyers have appealed the decision
and argue that jailing him makes it harder to defend him
because of the massive amount of information
that his attorneys need to confer with him about,
but this is a developing situation,
so we're gonna have to keep our eyes on.
And then, child influencers are constantly being exploited,
often by their parents, but the laws are starting to change.
Although I'm gonna let you know,
based off of my own personal experience
and knowledge of the industry,
these laws still fall short,
and I say that because Illinois
has now become the first state
to set up financial protections for child influencers,
with a law being signed on Friday,
and per the Associated Press, it,
"Will entitle child influencers to a percentage of earnings
based on how often they appear on video blogs
or online content that generates
at least 10 cents per view," with this specifically falling
under the state's child labor law
and applying to children under the age of 16.
And regarding the adult vloggers
or influencers responsible for posting the content,
they'll have to maintain a record of appearances
and set aside earnings in a trust account
that the kid can access once they turn 18.
And a very big deal: if they do not do that,
the kid can actually sue, and to qualify,
a child reportedly would just have to be in at least 30%
of the content over a 30-day period.
And in part, this is kinda just an evolution
of the industry.
Right, similar rules have been in place for children
in traditional forms of entertainment like film and TV,
but over the past decade,
online content has absolutely exploded.
And so with that, you had State Senator Dave Koehler
saying in a statement, "The rise of social media
has given children new opportunities to earn a profit.
Many parents have taken this opportunity
to pocket the money, while making their children continue
to work in these digital environments.
We need to work with our children
to see the problems they face
and tackle them head-on before any further harm is done."
With a spokesperson for Illinois Governor JB Pritzker
adding in a statement to Teen Vogue
that kids, "Deserve to be shielded from parents
who would attempt to take advantage of their child's talents
and use them for their own financial gain."
And actually, this legislation was inspired by a teenager
in Illinois, who frequently saw family vlogs online
and thought it was unfair that often,
these kids are made to participate in videos
without any guarantee of the income generated
from the content.
So she approached Senator Koehler with her concerns,
prompting legislation that turned into law.
Also, just to get, like, a little taste
of how invasive this can get, you had Teen Vogue speaking
to someone who had their likeness used by their parent
online against their will as a child,
with them saying things like their first period
and photos of them hospitalized after a car crash
were posted to their mom's 10,000 Facebook followers,
with them noting that this digital footprint
that they didn't get to create,
it follows them for the rest of their life.
And notably here, the Illinois law doesn't go into effect
until July of 2024, but now that the state has passed it,
experts say that other states could follow.
But that is where I'm gonna inject my annoying ass.
If other states do this, you have to tweak the law.
I don't know of any actual online influencers
who are a part of this legislation being made
or the specifics being put in,
but it's very possible that this law
actually won't help anyone because of the threshold,
which, if you're not in the industry, you may not know this.
10 cents per view is actually pretty high.
I'll give you a little math example.
There are no exacts here, but let's say you have
a family vlogger who puts out a video,
and they average a million views per video,
and then, let's say they have a sponsor
in every single one of those videos.
Depending on the brand and the quality of the ad sales team,
those people may make anywhere
between five and $100,000 for a million views.
But based off the number of family vloggers I've seen,
let's say it's 20 to $45,000.
When you split that across a per-view payout,
you're looking at two to 4.5 cents.
That is far below the 10-cent threshold,
and so I think the only kids that are gonna be affected
by this are, well, you'd probably count 'em on two hands.
People like the kid from "Ryan Toys Review," for example,
and that would only be because in addition
to the YouTube ad revenue and any kinda paid sponsorships,
they're a merch and toy powerhouse
that find themselves in big-box stores,
so the amount of revenue coming in is on another level.
But for the other 99% of kids being featured in content,
like, they're not gonna get anywhere near the threshold
for this to matter.
And so my hope in reporting this is yes,
we see more states implement laws like this,
but also, they do so in a way
that's actually going to do something.
And that is where your daily dive into the news
is gonna end, but for more news you need to watch right now,
I got you covered right here.
You just click or tap, or it's in the links down below,
or if you already seen everything, don't worry,
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to talk about more news with you tomorrow.